


Vitriolic, Patriotic, Slam Fight, Bright Light

by acequid



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Lila needs a hug, lila has some feelings in general, not in that order, the author has some feelings about lila
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26264641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acequid/pseuds/acequid
Summary: She doesn’t know that an impossible number of miles away, in a year that doesn’t quite exist, on a machine called the Infinite Switchboard, a blank screen is filling with color.She doesn’t know pain, or fear, or loss.She will.~Lila, and how it starts.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Lila Pitts, Number Five | The Boy & Lila Pitts, The Handler & Lila Pitts, The Hargreeves & Lila Pitts
Kudos: 27





	1. October 1, 1989

He is in the middle of a sale when everything changes forever.

It’s a wedding: a big one, one that orders out-of-season blooms and dozens of elaborate centerpieces. He hums to himself as he wheels the cart of assorted imported flowers from the loading bay to the stockroom. Weddings like these—events like these—never cease to excite. They promise large checks; money that takes a short trip down to the bank on Finch Lane and is deposited immediately into a modest checking account. 

_Someday,_ he thinks, smiling. Imagining the numbers ticking up, imagining a well-loved flat exchanged for a handsome townhouse, imagining the sound of little feet pattering across new wood floors. _Someday._

If she could hear his thoughts, his wife (hiding a smile of her own) would tell him to stop dreaming so much. She would tell him to focus on the current order, to take one day at a time. She would say _Someday, yes. But not today. And not tomorrow either, if someone doesn’t trim the rose stems down to the right length this time!_ And he would dance out of reach of her affectionate smack, lean down to kiss her with the promise of _soon_ sealed between their lips. 

Chuckling at this vision, he lines the cart up with the large stockroom counter and begins unloading bundles of carefully wrapped flowers. 

Creamy orchids, pale pink peonies, dusty purple lilacs...he pauses at these last and considers, before cutting a small sprig and tucking them into his breast pocket. Purple for royalty, he decides. Purple for wealth, for luck. 

The sound of shattering glass comes crashing from the front of the store, followed by a startled cry.

He’s through the door in a second, dodging the cart, calling for his wife in alarm. _What was that!_ And, _Are you alright?!_

She stands bent over in the center of the store. One hand on the display table for support, the other on her stomach.

Her rapidly expanding stomach.

He forgets to breathe.

They meet eyes, two pairs of stunned saucers connecting over a mess of water and shards of a glass vase. Fear, and shock, and confusion, and fear again, wordless communication in a flash carried through the bond of five years of marriage. 

_Impossible,_ he wants to whisper. 

_Ronnie…?_ She asks. Too many questions in one name.

He wants to cry for help, to pray for help. Instead, he lunges forward over the glass, grabs hold of his wife and leads her gingerly out the front door of their shop. The tiny bell overhead chimes. The crisp October wind sweeps over them. 

_Hospital,_ is the only word he utters. She can only nod mutely in response.

Thirty minutes later, a nurse is giving him a birth certificate as he desperately tries to hold his world together with both hands. _What..._ he stammers, _how…?_

_Congratulations, Mr. Gill. You have a beautiful baby girl._ And just like that, he is forced to believe in miracles.

_Does she have a name?_ He stares blankly at the piece of paper, uncomprehending. _Name and surname._ Name and surname. She needs a name. His daughter needs a name. 

He hunches over in the cold plastic chair, puts his elbows in his knees and his head in his hands. The floor spins. 

_Name and surname._ This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was supposed to be Someday. This was supposed to be Someday, and somehow Someday has become Today, has become right fucking _now,_ and now he has _congratulations, Mr. Gill, you have a beautiful baby girl,_ and his wife is recovering in a hospital gown, and no one is telling him what to do. 

The lilacs fall out of his shirt pocket and hit the tile soundlessly between his shoes. 

Purple on white. Dirt and nature on carefully sterilized floors. Outside on the inside. 

Someday is today.

Without warning, the laugh bubbles up from his feet and spills out his mouth.

_I think we ought to move our plan up, Anita. What do you think about the name Lila?_


	2. 1992

She is three years old and she knows mostly nothing.

She doesn’t know how to read or write. She doesn’t know how to run, has only just mastered the tentative wobble that will become a walk one day. She doesn’t know how to ride a bicycle. She doesn’t know  _ broccoli is good for you, Lila, please, please eat some for Mummy? _ She doesn’t know  _ there’s nothing under the bed, sweetheart, _ and she definitely doesn’t understand the reasonable offer that is,  _ I swear, Lila, if you stop crying right now, I’ll get you an ice cream—a hundred ice creams...a  _ million _ ice––oh, for the love of– Anita! _

She doesn’t know three years ago, her father picked up a night shift bartending at a dive halfway across the city so she could grow up in a home with stairs. (In a home far away from old neighbors who know  _ exactly _ how long that pregnancy lasted, who bite back curses to faces and hastily gestured crosses to backs, who whisper back and forth behind too-thin walls.)

She doesn’t know her mother watches her play with stars in her eyes, calls her  _ my little miracle, _ but has taken to cinching her belts a little tighter than she used to.

She doesn’t know a few thousand miles away, seven little boys and girls born at precisely the same moment are taking breakfast with a talking chimpanzee and a robot they will call Mom.

She doesn't know that once, when she was two, a bar of her steel-alloy crib snapped off in her hand like so much balsa wood. (The crib was promptly returned, accompanying a scathing product review condemning catastrophic manufacturing errors.)

She doesn’t know that, though she really doesn’t know how to run, really, her parents will swear she can: what with her ability to cross one side of the room to another while,  _ my back was turned for a  _ second _ at most, Ronnie, honest-to-God. We should enroll her in toddler races. _

She doesn’t know that sometimes, when she screams for no other reason than she is three years old and it is her inalienable right, a single thundercloud will be drawn out of the air to spit rain on the roof of her house. (The pattering sound will lull her into sleep.)

She doesn’t know that an impossible number of miles away, in a year that doesn’t quite exist, on a machine called the Infinite Switchboard, a blank screen is filling with color.

She doesn’t know pain, or fear, or loss. 

She will.


End file.
